Slashdot Mirror

You can't go to jail in the US just for illegal use of the internet.

Yes you can, google up Justin River Carter. He made a hyperbolic, sarcastic comment on Facebook, and he's looking at up to 10 years in jail. Another case is Cameron D'Ambrosio's. The magic word is terrorism: if anyone is scared by what you say or says they are, you are fornicated.

You can for looking at kiddie porn, or threatening somebody, but those things were illegal before we had an internet.

Same you can say about any country with the imprisonment mark. It was illegal to mock Mohammed in Pakistan before the Internet, and now too. The imprisonment icon means, "you can go to jail after unwarranted, sweeping wiretapping of your Internet connection".

At best, a clear majority currently supports gay marriage rights, 55-59% are currently supporting it all recent polls.

I would hardly call even 59% a clear majority. Depending on how many they surveyed it's probably still within the margin of error

You would call 59% a clear majority is you bothered to look up the margin of error (3.5%). Since this is now being found consistently by poll after poll, meta-analysis can drive the uncertainty down below 1%. And the difference between the "pro" and "anti" side is a whopping 25 points now. The "antis" are in a clear, shrinking, miniority.

...

Oh, and just for the fun of it I looked up the stats: http://takingnote.blogs.nytime...

According to Pew, this poll shows for the first time that there is as much strong support for same-sex marriage as there is strong opposition to it – 22 percent for each category.

So my 20% guess was slightly off. Sorry, It's 22%. I would say that my guess was still pretty accurate if you ask me.

Just for fun, why don't look up current data, not data several years old. The poll I linked to above has "strong" currently at 39%, so no, you are way off.

I know this thread is dead, but I can't help noting a couple of recent developments:

On the Yee story, CNN has managed to avoid the question of whether or not to disclose his party affiliation by not reporting on the story at all. Seriously. Check this. As of this writing the most recent story on him is from 2011.

In terms of more anecdotal evidence that I'm sure will be written off as confirmation bias, there's a new classic here from the Associated Press (via the Washington Post). An interesting summary article noting that Charlotte mayor Partick Cannon is just the latest of six mayors around the nation caught up in scandal. Most relevant to the thread here, none of them have their party affiliation mentioned. How many of those six do you think are Democrats?

In the 70's we did not need degrees to get most jobs. We still do not need degrees to work most jobs, the tools have gotten more complex, but their interfaces remain as easy and teachable as ever through on the job training, if not more so. In fact, at many fields where they've contracted my computing related solutions I put in place systems that require ME to know the jobs of their workers better than their workers themselves, and yet I am a software and hardware architect, not a chemist. I overheard a chemist new hire being told, "You got a degree, that shows you were interested. Forget that stuff you learned in college, you'll learn our process and as long as you didn't flunk highschool chemistry, you'll do fine."

Degrees can be seen as a barrier to entry to the poor who self educate. The final exam itself is problematic because degree mills exist. This is true even in the field of computer programming. I have met masters of computer science that can spout mountains of complexity theory but can not code anything more complex than what I teach 12 year old children at the community center on alternate weekends.

Don't you see? This is the Information Age. College degrees are unnecessary. Colleges are no longer the noble institutions they once were in the 70's when you didn't need a degree to get a job. They should be elective learning centers, not defacto requirement for employment. Now they sadde people with large debts and useless mandatory studies to extract more wealth, and even their corporate co-conspirators leverage the degrees for their devious ends. That's why even though much research has shown that even 60 year old coders run rings around newbies, corporations value "new degrees" in new languages or platforms -- ignoring that the experienced developer picks up platforms and languages without needing degrees as a matter of doing their job. The younger guy works harder instead of smarter, but their insurance is cheaper: They want young obedient singles. That's why you're dead to silicon valley at the child raising age of 40...

Colleges have become political social justice indoctrination camps where new ideas and research are stifled in the name of ideology. The stench of the dark ages shrouds these idealogical echo chambers. We need to dismantle these gatekeepers of employment before we find ourselves in an even darker age. Granting colleges defacto monopoly over white-collar employment is folly: Power corrupts, and brother, they are rife with the stuff. We need to outlaw the final exam, and use Entrance Exams to PROVE you know what you need to know to do the job you'll be doing. Many jobs do this already, so that means requiring a degree is merely a means to discriminate on the poor who could not afford college but are self educated at or above said degree's level. College degrees have become a system for oppression. They have become a means to force workers to compete amongst themselves ever more desperately as they become increasingly unable to afford exorbitant tuition fees.

The rich corporations take huge tax breaks then cry out for more H1B visas to employ lower pay foreign workers who's credentials mean even less than those in the USA and further drive the ROI of college investment down for local workers, when in reality, there never was a shortage of STEM workers. Now that the economy is crying the ROI of college is lower and it becomes apparent that the self taught billionaire drop-outs might be onto something. It's not that kids should drop out and expect to become rich, but instead that it's stupid to pay a college to teach them what they already know. They can start makin

Why do people consistently forget that there are two kinds of H1-Bs and mix them up in the same context all the time.

You have the 65,000 for the foreign workers.
And there is the 20,000 for U.S. educated graduate students.

Facebook, MSFT, Google, etc want the U.S. educated foreigners. They are usually better and are better to work with because they have had 1.5 to 5 years of acclimatization. The 65,000? Run hard if it's one in the 65,000 who also got a U.S. MBA, which just reinforces their "I deserve this" attitude, plundering jobs from the U.S. while hiring more H1-Bs.

We can do without the 65,000.

And even 20,000 might be too much. That's the number of student enrolled in 8 elite Ivy league schools, combined, each year. source

Re: WHY DO THEY GO ON RECORD
If you make a fuss you join
"Only One Big Telecom CEO Refused To Give The NSA The Access It Wanted... And He's Been In Jail For 4 Years"
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO Claims
http://www.wired.com/2007/10/n...

From the Washington Post version,

Australia had sued Japan at the U.N.’s highest court for resolving disputes between nations

Hold the phone--you mean there are ways to solve disputes between nations that *don't* involve firing artillery, invasion or threatening sanctions? Has anyone told North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine or the United States?

That crap gets rated as Insightful and gets 5 points? Wow. Tell you what. Name ONE, just one, UN resolution considered to be against North Korea that they have willingly obeyed. In fact, to be blunt, the whole reason that there are two Koreas instead of one unified and horribly backwards united Korean under Kim family despotism is because the UN Security Council authorized the use of force against North Korea's invasion when the Soviet Union infamously boycotted the meeting, only to find out the Security Council actually could take a vote without them there.

Of course that fear doesn't apply in the U.S. No one but the deeply paranoid wingnuts and the foolish cult of Greenwald dudebros are afraid of the "state" turning off their phone.

The IRS didn't just investigate the teabaggers, they investigated political groups on the right and the left, it was just the mentally-ill right-wingers with their persecution complexes (we're not persecuting them, we're making fun of them and their superstitious, backward, bigoted beliefs) that went nuts over it.

Well, that and the fact that the IRS did fast track the application for Obama's brother, who ran an illegitimate "charity" out of Kenya.

Gotta learn to read between the lines.

Australia had sued Japan at the U.N.’s highest court for resolving disputes between nations

Hold the phone--you mean there are ways to solve disputes between nations that *don't* involve firing artillery, invasion or threatening sanctions? Has anyone told North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine or the United States?

I would blame Obama, but that doesnt fit the same time window.

That doesn't stop people.

A Third Of Louisiana Republicans Blame Obama For Hurricane Katrina Response Under Bush

(poll data here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/1619... )

True enough... while we are both obviously even-tempered and rational, many others are not ;-). My conservative parents often say things (or more often, forward me emails) that make me want to cringe. It's not a one-sided thing though; for every person that thinks Obama is a secretly Muslim Kenyan, there's probably someone out there that thinks GWB planned 9/11. Reminds me of a Winston Churchill quote: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute discussion with the average voter."

I agree with you on the Pauls... sometimes I think they're the only sane ones out there, but then in other areas they really redefine crazy. I mean, just think if GWB suggested that he had the authority to unilaterally order the assasination of American citizens---but Obama does it, and Rand's the only one that makes fuss. But then I look at some of his other positions, like foreign policy, and I really wonder.

I didn't know that about M&M colorings... scary. On the other hand, the EPA hasn't done a lot to make people trust it lately, like this and this and this. I think the liberal vision would be fine if government could be trusted to always be efficient and impartial, and the conservative vision would be fine if business people, while seeking to maximize profit, agreed to always play by the rules when doing so. But obviously neither of those conditions is anywhere close to being true in reality.

I've enjoyed our conversation as well, thanks!

Lego has a reputation for manufacturing high quality bricks that holds glue yet can be easily dismantled by young hands I'm not sure that you can get that sort of result with 3d printed bricks. After all, Lego has survived without being undercut on price by other manufacturers of plastic toys.

On the other hand, many of Lego's sets are licensed products, with highly specialized pieces that really don't serve a functional role, and may not need the precision tooling that Lego claims is needed to make a strong yet breakable bond.

No-fly lists simply shouldn't exist, regardless of whether or not they can work. The idea that you can be considered too dangerous (Without a trial!) to fly and yet not dangerous enough to arrest is absurd. As others have said, this is just used for oppression.

There was one case of the no-fly list being used against US Sen Edward Kennedy, proof that it is a tool that can be exploited for political retaliation and oppression.

He was on the list because of someone with a similar name, not because DHS wanted to oppress him. Remember the old adage, "Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence."

No-fly lists simply shouldn't exist, regardless of whether or not they can work. The idea that you can be considered too dangerous (Without a trial!) to fly and yet not dangerous enough to arrest is absurd. As others have said, this is just used for oppression.

There was one case of the no-fly list being used against US Sen Edward Kennedy, proof that it is a tool that can be exploited for political retaliation and oppression.

How many other newspapers did you have to look at to find one where the affiliation is mentioned near the top?

It was the very first one. NY Times is my go-to news source. But I can do some more.

Next up is the Washington Post. I can't find this subject there, but here's their top article on corruption. Again it's a Democrat, and again that fact is in the second sentence.

Now let's check the first corruption-related article in the Seattle Times. Another story on the mayor from the WaPo article. This time you have to read all the way to the fourth sentence to find his party affiliation.

Get the point yet?

This is a regular lie that Republicans trot out. They just love to play the victim. See also: "white Christian men are the most oppressed group in America".

Washington Post now has a link to Inmarsat's analysis documents: http://apps.washingtonpost.com... http://s3.documentcloud.org/do... I've no idea what variable D1 is. Maybe some inherent frequency offset in the system that has to be subtracted. Maybe that's the minimum 85 Hz offset in the data. The difference between northbound and southbound flightpaths is almost 100Hz at times (e.g. 19:40 UTC). That's pretty big ; 100Hz from a 131 MHz signal (the higher 137MHz bands are North America only, I think) I get 100Hz / (131E6 Hz) ~ 7.63E-7, and (7.63E-7 x c = 229 m/s = 445 knots. That's a difference of 445 knots in plane-satellite line-of-sight closing speeds between north and south tracks. The 270 Hz peak at 18:20 UTC is an additional 100Hz, or 445 knots directly towards the satellite. The satellite is west, but also really high up. How could an airplane following the surface of the Earth achieve 445 knots closing speed towards a satellite? I still don't see all the details here.

Maybe it's sharply different outside the US, but this recent arcticle estimates Luxotica's US market share as only 40-50%

You are making a PRESUMPTION that the transponders were turned off by hand. There is still the possibility of a fire or some other case. This is why recovery of the FDR's is so important. The pilots may not have been on the radio, but the FDR's record everything they say. The conversations between flight crew is crucial, along with all the airplane data.

It is a reasonable assumption that the transponders were intentionally switched off, given the chain of events following the transponders being turned off and the cessation of radio communication, especially the flight path after those events occurred.

This is a good graphical summary of the events leading up to the crash.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

For those that are metric-challenged: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Revealed: secret plan to push'happy' pills
http://www.theguardian.com/soc...

Big Pharma Could Win International Price Monopoly, Unlimited Profits in 'Free Trade' Deal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

US patent moves are 'profoundly bad' in leaked TPP treaty
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement under negotiation between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Leaked documents show the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is pressuring TPP countries to expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and trade away access to medicines.
http://www.citizen.org/TPPA

The medical industry the third-leading cause of death in the United States; after heart disease and cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Big Pharma Shamelessly Shills Dangerous Bone Drugs You Don't Need
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency
http://www.globalresearch.ca/t...

"Somewhere in Rayong or Chon Buri on the coast of Thailand, a young woman may at this very moment be baring her arm for a shot of an experimental Aids vaccine that many of the leading scientists in the field say categorically has no hope at all of working.

She will be one of 16,000 volunteers recruited for the second large-scale Aids vaccine trial, a $119m exercise many scientists believe is a farce."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/scie...

Fraud has become so endemic in this country that it's woven its way into America’s DNA. 2). Big Pharma Fraud.
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

Drug Makers New Targets for U.S. Fraud Inquiries, Report Says
http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt...

Merck drew up a "hit list" of doctors that needed to be "neutralized" because they criticized the now banned drug Vioxx.
http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Merck invents its own journal to publish bogus research findings to promote it's own products.
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009...

Why Aren't These Fraudulent Papers Retracted?
http://truth-out.org/news/item...

Doubts about Johns Hopkins research have gone unanswered, scientist says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

A National Survey of Physician–Industry Relationships
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...

They don't give a crap about their targeting anyway. Just look at the slide from WaPo - and remember, this is their own training material. Do you see the fail? No? Look closely at their selector and what it actually matched.

Their selector is XXXXXXX@gmail.com, while it matched YYYYYYYYYY.XXXXXXX@gmail.com, which is an entirely different address. They don't anchor their matches. This means all you need is for <joe@gmail.com> to be in their database to match every single gmail address that ends in joe.

These guys clearly have no intention of improving their filtering - if they happen to grab stuff from someone who they didn't intend to target, they couldn't care less. They filters aren't worth the bits they're stored on.

Crimea has been autonomous within the Ukraine precisely because it is more ethnically Russian than Ukrainian,

How Russians Became Crimea's Largest Ethnic Group, In One Haunting Chart

Crimea may have a majority Russian population today, but it hasn't always been that way.

The peninsula's dark history of ethnic cleansing is visible in the following chart from Reuters.

The chart shows a collapse in the population of native Crimean Tatars from 34.1% in 1897 to zero in 1959, marking brutal harassment leading up to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's forcible deportation of the entire population in 1944, with nearly half dying in the process. It took decades for the population to climb back to 12% by 2001.

While the population of Ukrainians and especially Russians rose, the percentage of the population falling into an unlisted category also fell from more than 20% in 1921 to around 5% in 1959. This was a consequence of the deportation of Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and other groups.

Who are the Crimean Tatars, and why are they important?

Whatever the Tatar grievances against the Ukrainian state may be, when faced with the choice of being under either Russian or Ukrainian control, the Crimean Tatar leadership has consistently and unequivocally chosen Ukraine. Since the Soviet period, attempts to split the Crimean Tatar movement and persuade some of the Tatars to support a pro-Soviet, and later pro-Russian, agenda has not borne fruit.

Crimean Tatars fret over Russian domination again

Crimean Tatars living in Turkey said Monday they worry of a return to the terrible oppression they suffered in the Ukraine province the last time it belonged to Russia and the Soviet Union.

"We've seen this movie before and we don't want to see it again," said Celal Icten, 59, head of Crimean Tatar Association of Istanbul, whose parents were born in Istanbul and Romania but both draw direct lines to the ancient city of Bakhchisaray, the pre-Tsarist capital of Crimea.

Once Victims Of Stalin, Ukraine's Tatars Reassert Themselves

Just keep thinking "conga line" and you'll understand. Yeah, commuting on a train isn't all that it's cracked up to be either. I worked with a guy one time who obtained his masters degree by leveraging his commuting time on the Long Island Rail Road. Also ask those poor souls on the MARC train awhile back how they like their commute on the train.

at least they aren't rioting in afghanistan this time over the morons at newsweek reporting lies

Filthy console peasants never seem to learn.

It doesn't matter if you use a PC or a console, from MS' perspective, you are the product.

Microsoft is using your data to target political ads on Xbox Live

Microsoft is trying to persuade politicians to take out targeted ads on Xbox Live, Skype, MSN and other company platforms as midterm elections begin heating up around the country. To plug the idea, Microsoft officials handed out promotional materials Thursday at CPAC, the annual conference for conservatives.

It's the latest move by tech companies to seize a piece of the lucrative political ad market. The ads, which would appear on the Xbox Live dashboard and other Microsoft products, combine Microsoft user IDs and other public data to build a profile of Xbox users. Campaigns can then blast ads to selected demographic categories, or to specific congressional districts. And if the campaign brings its own list of voter e-mail addresses, Microsoft can match the additional data with individual customer accounts for even more accurate voter targeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]

MS marketing just likes to pretend they're not so they can keep their nasty competitor-bashing Scroogling campaigns going. This is a very dirty, unethical company, people. Don't trust anything they say or do.

Of course, Slashdot won't post this is news, because Microsoft pays them not to.

You are assuming that the person listening to the two of you debate has the intellect to make the right decision. What if this person does not and and makes the wrong choice?

I'll have no choice but to blame you for inciting hate by giving this hate preacher a platform to propagate his speech.

It's not just intellect that is the variable here. Economic situation and cultural differences also plays a very big role.
  Think again, very carefully, before you start lobbying for absolute free speech.

NB: US bans hate speech as well.

So who made the US the dictator of the rest of the world?

Absolute free speech doesn't exist even the US, so stop your whining about other totalitarian regimes.

There is no need for any country to gain absolute control over the Internet. I'm sure the UN ITU can handle this as they relatively done well with most other telecommunication infrastructure so far.

What is the chance of Microsoft, Google, and Apple getting together and agreeing on anything?

Well, they agreed that Obama needed an attempted ear-full from them about the NSA spying...

Senior executives from AT&T, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix, Twitter, Google, Microsoft and Facebook were among those in attendance.

“We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the President our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urged him to move aggressively on reform,” the technology firms said in a joint statement after the meeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/tech-executives-to-obama-nsa-spying-revelations-are-threatening-business/2013/12/17/6569b226-6734-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html

The evidence is clear: when has an American startup auto company ever succeeded by selling through auto dealers? The last successful American car company was Chrysler, which was founded almost a century ago, and even they went bankrupt a few years ago, along with General Motors. Since the founding of Chrysler, there have been dozens of failures, Tucker and DeLorean being simply the most well-known. In recent years, electric car startups, such as Fisker, Coda, and many others, attempted to use auto dealers and all failed.

Tucker's failure had to do with problems with the SEC and his own board of directors. Not because of anything having to do with dealerships but initially about selling accessories for cars he never produced. He had sold over 2000 dealerships at up to $30,000 a pop and it generated revenue, net inflow but because of these other problems he could never deliver the cars. The Dealerships weren't even a factor.

The DeLorean failed because of questions about the financial stability of DMC again by the SEC and selling a piece of crap that had reliability, quality and pricing problems. The DMC 12 had an MSRP of $25,000 which was pricey territory considering you could buy a full on European sports car for about $5,000 more that didn't have all of the problems the DMC 12 had. That and the fact that John DeLorean was caught up in in a drug scandal in 1982 didn't help the cause either. Ultimately DeLorean Motor Corp failed because nobody would invest in them because of these problems. The dealerships were actually on the side of consumers because they got tired of fixing problems that left the factory, so again, dealerships contributed to DeLorean's failure? No.

Fisker is recent history and it wasn't the failure of having dealerships. It was again, a $100,000 pile of crap that broke down and that coupled with the Obama Administration pushing green solutions (remember Solyndra?) agreed to loan money to Fisker so they kept expanding. When Solyndra blew up on the administration they stopped pumping money into Fisker citing delays. Fisker ran out of money because no more investment money was coming in and nobody was buying what they had because of the quality issues.

CODA failed because they built an ugly, overpriced vehicle that nobody wanted. Using an existing cheap Chinese car and making it electric while pricing it ridiculously high wasn't what the consumer wanted so it failed because of that. Were dealerships to blame for that strategy? No.

Given the author's dubious linkage to dealerships being a root cause of failure for these companies is disingenuous and it would seem more likely that:

1) Government Interference by Scrutiny/Questions about financial condition or impropriety and also including pushing your company to grow faster than you can.

- or -

2) Horrible/Overpriced Product with bad quality or lousy design that nobody wants to buy.

Are the more likely culprits here. We all agree Dealerships give people a licensed, well regulated licensed, way to print money by inflating costs to consumers. They don't really serve in the consumer's best interest and that's why all states have very strict laws governing how dealerships must operate and things like lemon laws should a vehicle become so deplorable that the consumer has a way out. In this day and age they are more outmoded considering other mechanisms for purchasing things that have evolved over the past 10 years however the guys who own dealerships have money and that money buys political influence. To a politician, a guy who gives you regular, large campaign contributions is somebody you'

By the way, I live in downtown "Union/Democrat mismanagement-ville" (Chicago) and pay around $6,000 in property taxes on my $500,000 condo. Combined with a low state income tax, negligible commuting costs and a high salary, I have very little to complain about.
So rampant gun violence doesn't bother you?

What do you mean?

From MS' perspective, you are the product and you have been for a long time now.

Microsoft is using your data to target political ads on Xbox Live

Microsoft is trying to persuade politicians to take out targeted ads on Xbox Live, Skype, MSN and other company platforms as midterm elections begin heating up around the country. To plug the idea, Microsoft officials handed out promotional materials Thursday at CPAC, the annual conference for conservatives.

It's the latest move by tech companies to seize a piece of the lucrative political ad market. The ads, which would appear on the Xbox Live dashboard and other Microsoft products, combine Microsoft user IDs and other public data to build a profile of Xbox users. Campaigns can then blast ads to selected demographic categories, or to specific congressional districts. And if the campaign brings its own list of voter e-mail addresses, Microsoft can match the additional data with individual customer accounts for even more accurate voter targeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]

MS marketing just likes to pretend they're not so they can keep their nasty competitor-bashing Scroogling campaigns going. This is a very dirty, unethical company, people. Don't trust anything they say or do.

Of course, Slashdot won't post this is news, because Microsoft pays them not to.

from MS' perspective, you are the product?

You have been for a long time now.

Microsoft is using your data to target political ads on Xbox Live

Microsoft is trying to persuade politicians to take out targeted ads on Xbox Live, Skype, MSN and other company platforms as midterm elections begin heating up around the country. To plug the idea, Microsoft officials handed out promotional materials Thursday at CPAC, the annual conference for conservatives.

It's the latest move by tech companies to seize a piece of the lucrative political ad market. The ads, which would appear on the Xbox Live dashboard and other Microsoft products, combine Microsoft user IDs and other public data to build a profile of Xbox users. Campaigns can then blast ads to selected demographic categories, or to specific congressional districts. And if the campaign brings its own list of voter e-mail addresses, Microsoft can match the additional data with individual customer accounts for even more accurate voter targeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

MS marketing just likes to pretend they're not so they can keep their nasty competitor-bashing Scroogling campaigns going. This is a very dirty, unethical company, people. Don't trust anything they say or do.

Of course, Slashdot won't post this is news, because Microsoft pays them not to.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Price inelasticity causes a loss of far more jobs than price elasticity. What people don't seem to understand about elastic prices (both for goods/services and labor), is it's the market's method of redirecting resources to where society deems most satisfactory. No one wants to commute via horse and buggy, but instead prefer cars? Prices reflect that. To not allow such things to happen is foolish.

An unconditional minimum income is just another subsidy to those who don't work. If we deem that having people not work is a good thing, then yes, we should implement such a thing.

It seems that you are confused about two things:

First, it appears you believe that labor is relatively specific: that individuals, once trained in a career, have a very difficult time changing careers. This is simply not the case; only 27% of people work in a job related to their degree[1]. It is very common for people to get a degree in one thing and work in something unrelated; or, to work in one area for a while, then shift to something else later down the road. Personally, I received my education in a dying industry; it was hard to find jobs or make any real money, so I moved to a growing industry. I am better off because I can more easily make ends meet and the market is better off because consumers' desires have successfully reallocated one of the scarcest of all resources (labor) from an over-saturated industry to an under-saturated one.

Second, you claim that automation shifts the limiting factor of industrial output away from manpower and towards energy and other land factors. Again, this is not the case. Automation increases the productivity of labor, which is of course a scarce resource. Capital goods have existed since as far back as the human race. No society has ever experienced a lower standard of living due to the automation that capital goods provide. Society has not become worse off because the plow was invented or because computers become so affordable as to be an everyday appliance. Such tools have allowed for things that once took a great deal of time and labor to now take much less (or in some cases, no) time or labor; this simply frees up the labor to work on new problems that were once of too low a priority for society to direct resources towards.

It may very well be that there is a mythology of "justification through hard work," which is quite unfortunate. But such a belief is silly and trivially disproved. No one gets rich working 16 hours a day making the largest mud pie in the world (at least, not unless society deems such a thing useful). Lastly, the market economy is a system which responds dynamically to consumers' demands; by definition, the more efficient the market economy is, the better it is meeting the needs and wants of those involved. I so no reason why we would not want maximum effectiveness from such a system. The effectiveness *is* the end the system exists to achieve.

• [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/....

I hate to rain on your parade with facts, but here are some relevant facts:
The Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) for someone currently in the workforce is around 57 (or any age with 25 years of service).
Payments don't start until you actually hit MRA.
The average federal worker makes 78K/year (let's not debate this too much, as president Obama is in these numbers).
While you can start payments at MRA with only 5 years in service (woo!) the amount of that pay is 1% of your average salary for your three highest salaried years per year. In other words, you'd get less than 5% of your ending salary (about $325/month).

The person in your example works for 20 years (let's say 18-38), "retires", begins receiving payments at 57 (no inflation adjustments during this time period). Let's pretend that this is the first year they receive payments (they retired in 1995) and that they made average salary ($61,000) at that time. They are now entitled to begin those lucrative payments you speak so highly about... $12200/year.

Your point that they will receive this payment until the end of their life is accurate, and they may receive this $12K/year (which is now adjusted upwards yearly for inflation) until they are 90 years old.

Sources:
https://www.opm.gov/retirement...
https://www.opm.gov/retirement...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0605-35.pdf

Actually, according to CIA, it was them attempting to retrieve stolen documents.

Citation: Washington Post

I think the argument goes...when you look at the fact that damn near all mass murders happen in gun free zones when we are speaking about the USA

Cite please. Or please list the "near all mass murders" you are referring to. Your statement (about nearly all mass murders happening in gun free zones) is definitely not true. Tucson is not a gun free zone and a legally owned gun did the damage there. The ex cop doing the Wesley Chapel, Florida theater shooting had a legal gun too. Where did you get your "fact"?

While I ponder why the parent got modded down, here are some citations to support those claims...

Universal background checks
"Public Option" healthcare
Minimum wage increase

Admittedly, I was just "guesstimating" the numbers above from vague memory, but as the links here show, I'm right in the ballpark on all of them.

It would be nice to see a lucid argument, rather than just getting down-modded reflexively.

Even Ellsberg went to congress.

Ellsberg is on record saying that Snowden did the right thing.

Other than it says it was from the Washington Post... http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I use Microsoft Office

You say that, but what do you say about Microsoft's SMM partners trying to bury the other story about Microsoft harvesting Xbox Live user data to target political ads.

Microsoft is trying to persuade politicians to take out targeted ads on Xbox Live, Skype, MSN and other company platforms as midterm elections begin heating up around the country. To plug the idea, Microsoft officials handed out promotional materials Thursday at CPAC, the annual conference for conservatives.

It's the latest move by tech companies to seize a piece of the lucrative political ad market. The ads, which would appear on the Xbox Live dashboard and other Microsoft products, combine Microsoft user IDs and other public data to build a profile of Xbox users. Campaigns can then blast ads to selected demographic categories, or to specific congressional districts. And if the campaign brings its own list of voter e-mail addresses, Microsoft can match the additional data with individual customer accounts for even more accurate voter targeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Of course, Sashdot will not consider this to be news, because they're paid not to.

It's not clear what the submitter thinks would be fair

To be fair, this is just a story that was planted by Microsoft SMM partners to offset the other story about Microsoft harvesting Xbox Live user data to target political ads.

Microsoft is trying to [ersuade politicians to take out targeted ads on Xbox Live, Skype, MSN and other company platforms as midterm elections begin heating up around the country. To plug the idea, Microsoft officials handed out promotional materials Thursday at CPAC, the annual conference for conservatives.

It's the latest move by tech companies to seize a piece of the lucrative political ad market. The ads, which would appear on the Xbox Live dashboard and other Microsoft products, combine Microsoft user IDs and other public data to build a profile of Xbox users. Campaigns can then blast ads to selected demographic categories, or to specific congressional districts. And if the campaign brings its own list of voter e-mail addresses, Microsoft can match the additional data with individual customer accounts for even more accurate voter targeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Of course, Sashdot will not consider this to be news, because they're paid not to.

It was only while scouring a database that contained the registration cards of naturalized U.S. citizens that a Satoshi Nakamoto turned up whose profile and background offered a potential match. But it was not until after ordering his records from the National Archives and conducting many more interviews that a cohesive picture began to take shape.

The idea that anybody can search databases of federal government-curated vital records for a specific profile to identify any given person without proof of relationship or a court order is more than a little horrifying.

According to the Washington Post, "Police have so far classified the death as 'unnatural,' which can mean an accident, misadventure, or suicide," and they've taken that and combined it with "Last month she linked to an article on entrepreneurs suffering depression, commenting above the link: everything has its price." WaPo stops short of outright *saying* she committed suicide, but that's certainly the conclusion they're leading their readers to.

No. My scores for example were "so what" at Harvard. At those schools, the SAT scores of many applicants tend to be so good that they don't matter. The school can admit all the 800 scores they want, but do go looking for other qualities. The statistical validity of the SAT above 700 or so is not very good and is not useful for distinguishing among candidates—the test is designed around the much lower and heavily populated mean. Moreover, the SAT is technically not an IQ test any more, rather a measure of scholastic "achievement." (The "A" in SAT used to stand for aptitude, until 1992 or so. Mensa no longer accepts SAT scores I think. I'm not endorsing IQ tests here either.)

Consider http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

If you're vaccinated, it's not going to affect you. If you're not vaccinated because you can't afford to be, then get Obamacare quickly. If you're not vaccinated because of stupidity, then may God help you.

Right. Because Obamacare is cheap.

/sarcasm

Then there's the real-world problem of doctors who won't take Obamacare patients.

Yay. One wonders if Obama can predict the consequences of ANYTHING he does. He made fun of Palin in 2008 for suggesting Putin would invade Ukraine, and then Obama made fun of Romney for calling Russia unfriendly.

Yep. Tout Obamacare. Just like your Lightbringing Messiah, you live in Fantasyland.

Think I'm kidding?

President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. ...

Yeah. Tout Obamacare.

As I recall it, Saddam said the UN inspectors were welcome, as long as there were no American inspectors there, because he was convinced they were CIA spies.

No, Saddam didn't want the inspectors there because he didn't want actual evidence to get out that he didn't have WMDs. He was more afraid of Iran than he was the US, and he said as much after he was captured and before he was executed.

Republicans are opposed to giving your hard earned money to people such as wounded veterans:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

There's the latest group of "lazy poor'"people the Republican party kept from getting any of your hard earned money.
Every single vote against this bill came from a Republican, and the 60 vote Super-majority rule in the US senate means a pure Republican minority managed to block the bill. Reasons given include the claim that the VA backlog has increased and spending the money would encourage veterans to try and use the system instead of giving up on it. VA backlogs had been steadily decreasing until the sequester kicked in.
I'm pretty sure this particular case of stupid Republican thinking has affected you, and will continue to affect you. It's certainly affected me - now every time a Republican says "Thank you for your service", I hear "... you sucker that thought we really meant it.".

TOMMY, by Rudyard Kipling

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "

Keep the numbers in perspective, 0.15%.

Being on a "smartphone" or "tablet" puts you easily into the top 70% of the socio-economic strata... poor people carry prepaid burners.

So, the people have money, 1.5% of them are willing to crack open their wallets, and 10% of those just don't care.

The top 1% make more than $500K/year, and we're talking about 1/1000 type people here...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Sure, if I made $50K/month, I probably wouldn't blow $10K of it on cocaine and hookers, or candy crush, but I should be so lucky as to be tested....